Professor David Williams

About

David is Head of School and a Professor of Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology.

Research interests

David's research focuses on various forms of developmental psychopathology, including autism spectrum disorder and specific language impairment. He is interested in understanding the nature and neuro-cognitive bases of developmental disorders, as well as what these disorders tell us about typical development. Primarily, David uses cognitive-experimental techniques, among typical and atypical populations, to investigate topics, such as:

• The typical and atypical development of episodic memory and episodic future thinking
• Prospective memory in autism spectrum disorder
• Metacognition (awareness of own mental states and cognitive activity) and mindreading (awareness of others’ mental states and cognitive activity), and the relation between them
• The development and function of inner speech use
• Comorbidity in developmental disorders

For David's research into metacognition in autism spectrum disorder, he was given the prestigious 2010 Young Investigator award by the International Society for Autism Research. David is Associate Editor of the journals Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders and Autism and Developmental Language Impairments

Supervision

PG students

Current research students

• Mahsa Barzy (Leverhulme Trust): Imagining the self in fictional worlds: evidence from Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Katie Carpenter (ESRC +3)
• Louise Malkin (Research Scholarship (PhD) in Developmental Psychology 2015): The development of referential communication in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Marchella Smith (School of Psychology Studentship): TBA
• Maria Zajaczkowska (School of Psychology Studentship): Ironic versus non-ironic relevance inferencing: a comparison of typical children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Past research students

• Dr Julia Landsiedel: Prospective memory in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (2018)
• Dr Catherine Grainger: Metacognition in autism
• Dr Emma Grisdale: The typical and atypical development of self awareness

Professional

• Associate Editor of Research in Autism Spectrum Disorder: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/research-in-autism-spectrum-disorders
• Associate Editor of Autism and Developmental Language Impairments: http://dli.sagepub.com/
• Guest editor for a special issue on "the coherence of autism" for Autism: International Journal of Research Practice
• Editor of the forthcoming Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of developmental psychopathology
• Editorial board member of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
• Editorial board member of Autism: International Journal of Research and Practice